


Navel-Gazing

by Rhonda



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: F/M, Female Pronouns for Grell Sutcliff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insecurity, Introspection, Period-Typical Sexism, Piercings, Suggestive Themes, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonda/pseuds/Rhonda
Summary: During their first year in the Grim Reaper Academy, Grelle wants to get her bellybutton pierced, however her boyfriend William has reservations.
Relationships: William T. Spears/Grell Sutcliff
Kudos: 22





	Navel-Gazing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cherumie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherumie/gifts).



> This is a request from my [tumblr.](https://grellespears.tumblr.com/)

“Oh absolutely not.”

“Bwuh?” bwuhed Grelle, stopping in her tracks to turn and look at her boyfriend. Stoic and handsome as ever. She had just asked him if he’d accompany her to Commissary to get her bellybutton pierced. He could have just said no, in fact she had half expected him to, but the vehemence with which he turned her down completely blindsided her. “But… why?”

William grimaced, like he was trying to keep a lot of negative thoughts from leaking out of his head and into the hallway. His gaze darted back and forth along the floor from behind his stock wire frame glasses. “It’s… I don’t think you should.”

“And what exactly is the reason that I shouldn’t then? Come on, convince me you master orator, you,” she asked, grin returning to her face from the haze of confusion.

“Well, it’s unprofessional,” he said. She knew he knew she knew it was a lame line, and he seemed ever so slightly deflated after saying it.

“Hmm, that’s not exactly the masterful oralation I was expecting,” she said with a smirk.

“It’s _oration_ , not _oralation_.”

“Is it now?” she asked, tapping her chin with the tip of her pointer finger, slowly sauntering her way over to him. He just stood stiffly there like he always did.

“It is, and you really ought to think about your career,” he said, as close to a stammer as William ever got. “We’ve already had our first wave of washouts. Muldoon and Falstaff and a half dozen others from our incoming class have been dismissed and sent to train as clerks or work in the kitchens or Heaven knows where. The instructors don’t need any more reasons to come down on you.”

“Oh you tease me William, my heart aches for you. I know your disapproval only belies your burning passion,” she cooed, draping her body across his. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and nearly hung off of him. Some of the Reapers walking down the hallway turned and gawked at the flagrant display of apparently homosexual affection, but most barely spared them a glance. To his credit William didn’t push her off of him. And he even chastely met her lips when she went in for a quick smooch, which was still a lot given the man’s predisposition against public displays of affection. “But I don’t think getting a little piece of metal in my tummy will overshadow my outstanding academics, Mr. B Average,” she added.

“It’s trashy,” he said bluntly, seemingly regaining his composure. She pulled back from him and searched his face, trying and failing to read him, as she always did.

“Oh, you don’t want me to be your little harlot?” she asked, playfully bopping him on the nose with the pads of her fingers, but her voice betrayed a certain level of uncertainty. They had been dating for several months now, but even still Grelle was very insecure about their relationship. It was the first one she’d ever been in and she desperately didn’t want to ruin it. She was certain this was true love. Even after having adopted a more outgoing and, she’d be the first to admit, flamboyant personality she was still neurotic and probably wracked with all manner of psychological pathologies. In this she wasn’t atypical of the Reaper populace, or even of her immediate company, but she remained very nervous about William. Deep down a part of her believed the fever would one day break and he’d see her for what she was and go off to be with a real woman. 

She thought she ought to do as he wanted, but she rarely did what she thought she ought to. She wanted this piercing. Ever since he’d helped her dye her hair she wanted to do more stuff. Despite her boyfriend's best efforts to advocate on her behalf there were still all manner of restrictions placed on her by the Reaper code of conduct. Restrictions that prevented her from looking and acting the way she wanted. She was still prohibited from wearing the women’s uniform or even wearing anything other than the drab black suits everyone else wore. She couldn’t paint her nails or wear makeup that was too noticeable and her hair was still short from when it was forcibly cut to more resemble the boy they wanted her to be.

“Grelle, it’s very tasteless, unprofessional, and tacky. I forbid it.”

“You didn’t an- What? Wait, what was that last thing you said?”

“I said I forbid you from getting your navel pierced.”

“Oh my God!” Grelle said letting go of the embrace and stepping back from the man, really taking him in. “So you’re not just going to leave me to do this alone, you’re going to tell me I straight up can’t? You don’t tell me what I can and can’t do! I do what I want! What the fuck?” She could feel her face heating up, red hot like the surface of the sun. She may be self conscious and insecure but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t stand up for herself. 

“Grelle, you are my woman,” William said with the undue patience of a saint. “This is what being a wife is. If that’s what you want to be then you’ll need to get used to it.”

“I’m not subservient to you!” she shouted, drawing the attention of a nearby group of secretaries. If William was self conscious about making a scene he didn’t show it. There was a brief silence.

“Well-” William started before being cut off.

“Oh no no no no! You can go fuck yourself William T. Spears! You can take your sad little power trip and your disdain for what I do with my body and shove it!” Grelle shouted, turning and walking away down the hall. 

“But I don’t…” he started again, but Grelle didn’t hear the rest of what he had to say as she had already turned the corner into the building’s stairwell.

* * *

“ _William, my boy, if she’s so despondent then that’s on you. A man ought to keep his woman in line.”_

“...hate what you do with your body,” he finished as Grelle disappeared from sight. Or did he?

Why are women so dysfunctional? Why did every woman he ever tie himself to have to be so unreasonable? Why did they have to be so unparsable? Grelle was an enigma, albeit an exceptionally attractive and pathetic enigma.

He started after her, but he knew it was already too late. She was gone. He took off towards nowhere in particular. Down a flight of stairs and then another.

His father and the word of God had always imparted in him the virtues of a firm patriarch. But did those values even apply here, in this new kind of culture with this new kind of woman? Did they ever? His wife had always been so miserable, and he was made to believe it was on account of his leniency, but looking back it had certainly always been on account of his austerity. That, and about half a dozen other of his psychological pathologies. He was a terrible husband. He hoped she was happy now. Maybe he’d check in on her if he didn’t wash out and managed to become a full fledged Reaper. He walked through the atrium of the building and out through some glass doors onto the greater London Dispatch Campus.

It wasn’t just women. William didn’t really understand anyone, nobody ever seemed to behave in ways that made any sense. At the very least Grelle had the good courtesy to loudly exclaim her emotional state at any given moment so he wouldn’t be left guessing. That was why he loved her so much. 

But he’d really fucked up this time. Even if he didn’t want Grelle to get an ugly piece of metal implanted in her body the direct approach was clearly wrong and had some dire consequences. 

Maybe he’d get what a small part of him had been waiting for since this fiasco of a relationship started: an end to this and a return to his penitent solitude. Ugh, but she was so cute though.

That damn belly was what made him fall for her in the first place. The soft silky smooth ocean of skin. Its pale creamy color. The way it would poke out when she’d stretch, causing her dress shirt to ride up and come untucked. The way it looked coming out of the shower covered in little beads of water. The little mousey brown hairs that trailed down from her bellybutton and below her beltline. So thin and wispy and soft.

Where exactly did those hairs go he wondered? If they broke up he’d never find out. 

William hit his shins on a low concrete bench and nearly tumbled over into a flower bed. Thankfully he wasn’t so deep in his daydream that he couldn’t catch himself. No one seemed to notice his gaff, and he used the proximity to the bench to sit down and try and keep himself from posing any further danger to the public and himself on account of his chronic reveries.

He never wanted to see that belly change. Sure, he did genuinely think bellybutton piercings were trashy and unprofessional. And sure, he was worried of his job advocating on her behalf getting any more arduous. But that wasn’t really it, was it?

Grelle was the sun, and William was a primordial man terrified that one day she might set and never rise again.

He wished he could keep her just the way she was. Every time she changed it felt like he was rolling the dice on whether she’d become someone else. Someone other than his. Maybe one day the fever might break and she’d realize what an antisocial brick of a man he was and she’d belong to someone else.

His wife was never his, she may have said all the words on their wedding day, but if she ever loved him she didn’t show it. Grelle loved him so much, so much that it was stifling, so much that he didn’t know what to do with all the feelings that she filled him with. 

He wanted her, he wanted to possess her, and have her. But even when he had her, she still belonged to herself too. Men can have their wives and wives can still be mutable growing living things, the two ideas needn’t be mutually exclusive. More than anything William regretted that he’d had to become a psychopomp before he could realize it. 

He’d need to be more careful about the things he thought he knew.

William stood up from the bench and made his way to Commissary.

* * *

_“Grelle, I forbid you from ever going in my closet ever again. Just wait until your father hears about this.”_

Grelle’s hand went to her cheek instinctively, the slap hadn’t hurt as bad as what came after, but she could still feel it even now that she was so far from where she had grown up.

She didn’t think William would ever physically chastise her, at least earnestly anyway. There were times when he’d playfully bonk her over the head when she was particularly annoying, but it was all in good fun. She was more worried at the possibility of him dumping her, if that hadn’t already happened. Grelle kept walking down the concrete pathways towards Commissary.

If General Affairs was where Reapers got what they needed to function and Requisitions was where they got what they needed to survive, then Commissary was where the unliving got the things they needed to live. It was smack dab in the center of the London Dispatch Campus and boasted a modest promenade for bureaucratically permissible recreation. While the campus had its own professional gymnasium, Commissary had its own Rec Center full of much more fun activities than Scythe training and cardio. There were a few specialty shops, a tailor, a hairdresser, and even a very unpopular bar.

Grelle had heard there were special exclusive executive bars in some of the administrative buildings that only the highest ranking Reapers were allowed inside, but Grelle had never been one to drown her sorrows, especially as of late with how lucky she was to be dating such a wonderful man. But, maybe given recent developments she would need to visit the bar later after all.

Grelle walked past it and towards the salon. She had only recently discovered they provided piercings and had booked this appointment a couple days ago. All of the women working at the Commissary salon were so nice to her. Maybe if she washed out of Reaper training she could train to become one of the hairdressers here. 

The only thing keeping her from dropping out willingly was that it was too safe, and her self destructive tendencies hadn’t exactly ended when she got here. That, and with her luck she’d probably end up assigned to be a janitor for eternity if she did. Reapers routinely got into hot water while on the job, that was what all the gym class was for. With how sterile and safe the Reaper Realm was, if she ever wanted to put her life at risk again it’d have to be as a Collections Operator.

Grelle suddenly realized she’d long since walked past the salon and she turned around to head back towards it.

She had half the mind to run back to William and apologize for her rudeness. That was what a real woman would do after all, right? That’s what pre-Reaper Grelle would have done. If that weak pathetic man had been given the kind of love William gave her he probably would have caved into his every whim and loved every second of it. In a way that Grelle had been a better woman then than she was now. Quiet, subservient, clumsy. He could almost disappear into the wallpaper and no one would ever notice he was gone. But no, she wasn’t that man anymore, she was her own damn woman and she’d get her bellybutton pierced if it was what she wanted.

She realized she’d passed the salon again. She spun around and strode towards it with a purpose and a singular goal not to let her mind wander. This time she wouldn’t walk past it. This time she’d stop and turn inside and greet the nice woman at the counter.

And she walked briskly right by it again. She stopped next to a concrete planter with a small coniferous tree and tried to steady her breathing, which she only just realized had become irregular. Even if she didn’t need to breathe that didn’t mean she couldn’t hyperventilate and pass out. 

She was actually kinda scared. She’d faced down guys twice her size during training duels and not felt nearly as scared as she did now. It wasn’t just because of her spat with Will, although that certainly wasn’t helping. The reason she’d even asked him to come with her in the first place was because of how nervous she had been about getting the piercing. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but the prospect had her stomach tied in knots ever since she first thought of it. 

She leaned over the planter and dry wretched imaginary vomit into the dirt. She felt sick and dizzy and not just because she hadn’t had anything to eat all day. When she stood back up she felt a pair of hands go to her shoulders. They were strong and masculine and squeezed away tension like it was what their owner believed God had designed them for. She could smell his sweet nutmeg aftershave, it was unmistakable.

She didn’t care if she was mad at him, all she wanted was him to be near her. She leaned back against his broad chest and let him wrap his arms around her front. She closed her eyes and nuzzled into him.

“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time.

“You don’t have to be,” he said quietly into her hair, placing a small kiss to her scalp. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, I really don’t and I didn’t, but I still am. I’ll always be sorry for not being a perfect woman, even if I don’t have to be.”

A lesser man might have said: “But you are a perfect woman,” or “nobody’s perfect, Grelle.” Instead William took some time to collect his thoughts and finally whispered against her skin: “Grelle, your hair is soft and your smile is a light shining in darkness, what more could any man possibly ever deserve.” 

She felt a gloved hand slip up under her untucked dress shirt and run across her tummy. He’d never touched her like this, they had never done anything more than hand holding and the occasional betongued kiss. But now his hand was up her shirt. Maybe it wasn’t exactly the second base she’d been fantasizing about, but she still felt her face heat up. She was already so light headed from the hyperventilation, the last thing she needed was a nosebleed. 

“I’ve just been wanting to touch you here for so long, Grelle. I want to know what it’s like before it changes,” he whispered into her hair. She sighed, even now her man was so silly. 

“No matter what happens it’ll still be me, William.”

He gave her one of his rare smiles.

They walked into the salon together and were greeted by the friendly woman who ran it. She was amongst the few people who had actually respected and acknowledged her womanhood since Grelle had begun living as herself.

They were led into a private room where Grelle lay back on a cushy soft table, and they waited alone for her appointment to begin.

All the while William profusely apologized for his misogynistic malfeasance. He seemed insecure about making excuses, but Grelle assured him that she understood, probably better than most women, how the pressures of manhood can severely stifle one’s ability to have healthy relationships. 

“I do really worry about you being forced out of the Academy, but no matter what comes, I’ll be here for you,” William finished from an uncomfortable chair in the corner of the room. He sighed and looked off into the middle distance. There was a sad look that flashed across his face, one that Grelle didn’t have the time to interrogate before it was replaced with his ordinary scowl.

“I’d be more worried about yourself, just let me know if you ever need any tutoring, I’d be happy to show you,” Grelle replied, idly spinning her training Scythe around in the air. William seemed nervous that she might drop it on her face, but he seemed too chastened to vocalize his concern. William opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a woman knocking and entering the room with a tray full of metal equipment.

Grelle chit chatted with her while she sanitized her equipment, and William tried his best to not look as sullen and out of place as he always did.

She asked Grelle to take off her shirt, and while she did it without a moment's hesitation, William still made an eep and quickly averted his eyes like the consummate gentleman he was. Grelle giggled and found a towel to cover her chest with.

“Alright, this is going to hurt for a moment, and then it’s going to sting for at least six months,” the woman said. Grelle reached out for William and his hand was already there grabbing hers and squeezing it reassuringly.

The actual piercing part of the piercing took barely any time at all. It hurt, but Grelle was more than used to pain, and it wasn’t even that bad.

William held her hand through all of it and looked her in the eyes. Their eyes were the same now. Once, they might have been different colors, but here and now they were the same. Every Reaper got here the same way and was in the same situation. She looked into those eyes and he looked at her. His eyes were as unreadable as ever, but she certainly saw love in them.

The woman dabbed at the wound with a wet cloth to stop the small amounts of bleeding and secured the piercing with a simple silver barbell.

Once again William averted his eyes as she put her shirt back on and offered to help her adjust her tie. She was as grateful for the help as she was for the closeness, she still hadn’t mastered any of the nuances of high class men’s fashion. 

He led her out of the salon hand-in-hand, and when he looked back at her she offered him a big toothy smile. They didn’t have any more classes all day and she thought she might just be able to guilt trip him into skipping his ordinary library visit for something more fun. Maybe she ought to see just how lame the company bar really was.

Their bodies were superhuman, but it would still take months to heal so it might be a while before she’d be able to wear something to show it off. Now under her shirt and tie, it was her hidden little act of defiance. Her small proof that she was the woman she truly believed herself to be. 

Maybe now for a moment she could finally look away from her navel, up and away towards her bright future.

**Author's Note:**

> This technically part of my [What an Awful Fate For My Mother That She Bore A Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935485/chapters/60351409) and [Hand Me Down My Suit And Tie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25030375/chapters/60615826) continuity. I still refuse to officially list it as a series since they're all effectively completely different stories and I genuinely believe that seeing fics being listed as part of a series turns people off from reading them.


End file.
